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The Sanctuary Downtown / Relentless Love
Hosted by Peter Hiett · EN
http://www.relentless-love.org
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I Am God’s Choice (or nothing)
2w agoTap to summarizeI have a memory burned in my flesh and haunting my psyche. Every day, around about 1968 or ‘69, Mr. Johnston would gather all of the seven- and eight-year-old boys for PE, assign captains, and then make them pick teams. I was never picked first. Sometimes the captains would publicly argue over who would have to be stuck with me... Never first, but also not last. That was usually Matt, or maybe Duncan. Matt and Duncan always played Batman and Robin at recess, and even then, Duncan always got to be Batman and Matt always had to play Robin — but at least Batman likes Robin. Routinely, someone would yell, “Get Matt and Duncan,” and a crowd of little boys, all trying to be the chosen, would chase Duncan and Matt behind the backstop, knock them down, and start kicking — only to walk away when Batman and Robin had been humiliated and left in the dust whimpering. I remember standing on the side of that crowd, utterly frozen. I wanted to be chosen; I wanted to be one of the guys. And yet I wanted to choose Matt, to go lie in the dust next to Matt. And I began to wonder, “How does God choose?” How does God pick His friends? Do we have to try out for His team? Does He choose us based on our choices... and if so, who made those choices? Choices are made by choosers, so who makes all the choosers? And what is Hell? Behind the backstop in 1968, it already felt like hell. John 15:12-14, Jesus is walking from the Upper Room to a garden named “Gethsemane” and then on to a garden on Mt. Calvary. He’s just told them of the True Vine, Vinedresser, and Branches, when He says, “This is [the commandment of me], that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends IF you do what I command you...” This must be how He picks His team. In our worship service this week, I said. “Let’s pick teams.” I asked those who do what Jesus commands, to raise their hand and then go to the right side of the room at my command. Then I asked those who don’t do what Jesus commands to raise their hand. We ran into a problem, for most people raised the same hand both times. We hope that the Judgment of God would judge between people, but it seems to cut people, all people... cut each one of us in two. John 15:15, “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” I hate being a boss, but love being friends. So, I’ll often explain myself to “employees,” because I want them to trust my intentions; I want to be friends. I want them to agree with me because they trust me (That’s called, “faith.”) Jesus doesn’t want robots, slaves, or employees; He wants friends. And did you notice in the passage that Jesus just called them “Friends”? And yet at dinner, He had told just them, “You will all fall away [scandalizo: be scandalized, sin] because of me this night.” And yet again, He will soon tell them (just 13 more verses), “I have said these things to you to keep you from falling away [scandalizo: ‘being scandalized,’ sinning].” They do fall away, yet they all come back, as if His word in them were some sort of homing beacon or imperishable seed. For three years, they had chosen to leave everything and follow Jesus. At times, it seemed like the best choice they had ever made. As the chant of the crowd changed from “Hosanna” to “Crucify, Crucify,” they would each re-evaluate all their choices and choose to abandon their friend. Jesus knows this. He turns and says... John 15:16, “You did not choose me, but I chose you...” That must’ve sounded so strange and yet so familiar. God chose Abraham. God Chose Israel. God Chose Judah. And they all had a tremendously difficult time choosing God. God tells the people of Israel to choose but informs them that they cannot, for their hearts have not been circumcised. Joshua tells them to choose to serve but then tells them they are unable. He and his house will choose and serve, but to be part of Joshua’s house (His Bride or children) is not their choice. It’s Joshua’s choice. “Joshua” is the Hebrew form of the name “Jesus.” John 15:16, “You did not choose me, but I chose you...” I think that means that He controls the “IF.” “There is no greater Love than to die for your friends.” Jesus dies for “the sins of the whole world.” He must consider all the sinners in this world to actually be His friends. John 15:16, “You did not choose me, but I chose you...” He is the Logos, the Logic of God. He is the Light, the Way, The Truth, and the Life. Maybe you can’t choose Life unless the Life has chosen you. Maybe you can’t tell the Truth unless the Truth is telling you; you can’t find the Way unless that Narrow Way has found you. You can’t choose to turn on the Light unless the Light has chosen you and decided to turn you on to Him. Maybe you can’t even think unless you are being thought. Maybe you can’t choose the Good unless the Good is choosing you, and choosing you from the inside out, as you choose the Good — and even as you choose the bad and regret it later on. He controls the “IF.” And yet, He doesn’t want robots, slaves, or employees; He wants friends. How does He do that? Perhaps He just told us, His friends... John 15:1-5 (what we preached last time), “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he lifts up, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes [kathairo], that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean [katharos: pruned] because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. [Maybe each one of us is a bunch of branches, just as each person is a bunch of choices.] The one abiding in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” If you define “free will” as a choice that you make apart from God, which determines the choices of God, then your “free will” is nothing. It’s a nothing that you think is a something, which is worse than a mere nothing; it’s an illusion that the devil inhabits. John 15:10-12, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” I woke up at 4 a.m. last Wednesday morning, wrestling with this Word from God: “Abide in the vine.” Then suddenly, the obvious hit me: Branches don’t choose to abide in the vine, prune themselves, or grow fruit. I realized, “I Am God’s choice or I am nothing.” And then, it felt like I began to abide — I was at home, at home in “me.” And when branches abide in the vine . . . FRUIT just happens. It is what Jesus commands: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, the Good, etc. Jesus will soon be hanging on a tree in the middle of a garden on the Holy Mountain. There’s a reason that we all chose evil, and God chose the Good: mercy on all. God wants all the children of Adam to see: His decision is Grace; He is Grace; He chose you, long before you could even begin to choose Him. When I believe the snake and so take the fruit in order to create myself in the image of God, I take the Life, crucify Christ, choose death, and produce “the works of the flesh.” That’s My choice: Self-righteousness, fake fruit, and sour grapes. And I become a tree of death. But when I believe the Truth and so surrender to Christ, it is Christ in me giving His life to me and rising from the dead within me as every good choice born of me: New Wine, the Fruit of His Spirit in me, His Life through me — our eternal life. The Tree of Life, the True Vine, now grows in me. I am a temple, and the Holy of Holies in me is the inner man in me, Christ in me, the True Vine in me. The Outer Man must be dead branches: the form of life but drained of life, like a corpse — or nothing. My consciousness can abide in either place: God’s something or the nothing I pretend is something 1.) I can’t grow fruit by trying, for then I’m not abiding in the vine, and so all the fruit I grow is fake.2.) I can’t prune my own vine; I can’t judge my own choices, for that would just be more of my own bad choices and create more dead branches. 3.) A branch can’t just decide to abide in a vine unless the vine has already decided to abide in the branch, in which case the branch actually becomes the vine. 1.) The Eleven had tried to Love as Jesus loved for three years and would utterly fail this night. 2.) In a few hours, they would each re-evaluate all their choices; they would attempt to prune their own vine. 3.) Jesus would turn and say, “You didn’t choose me; I chose you.” That Word must’ve sat in them like a seed, root, or stump. It was our Lord’s Choice in them. At the cross, the Vinedresser pruned them down to Jesus (“God is Salvation”). They fell away, and yet they came back, for they just wanted to be with Him; they wanted to abide with Him even when He seemed to be good for nothing... just good. And in case you didn’t know, those 11 guys bore fruit. When I see that I didn’t choose Jesus, but Jesus chose me, I trust the vine in me, and He trusts us both to the Vinedresser. And then I abide, and FRUIT (Good Choices) just happen. I don’t have to prune the branches, and I don’t have to fake the fruit. I just need to know: “I Am God’s Choice or Nothing.” Jesus said, “Apart from me you can do nothing.” When I see it, my ego disappears, the vinedresser prunes my branches (I can let stuff go; it’s nothing), and it changes all my nothings into His something. And then, I’m free to be “me.” But in 1968 behind the backstop, I was frozen. I wanted to be part of that crowd, tha...
Transcribe →Authenticity in Worship
3w agoTap to summarizeNo description available
Transcribe →Prayer That Doesn’t Work
May 3Tap to summarizeIn John 5:1-11, Jesus says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser... Abide in me... you are the branches. Whoever abides in me... he it is that bears much fruit.... If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” As I prepared to preach on these verses, I found myself getting angry. I think I must assume that Jesus is saying, “Have your ‘Quiet Times,’ do your devotions, say your prayers and everything will go your way.” Nineteen years ago, I had never been more faithful in prayer, diligent in doing good deeds, and devoted to the practice of communion. And in the span of a few weeks, everything (or it felt like everything... my accomplishments) was stripped away. Perhaps you’ve been there? Whenever I get mad at God, everything changes when I step into Jesus. Did Jesus say His prayers? Did Jesus do good deeds and celebrate communion? Actually... He had just instituted communion and washed the disciples’ feet and was about to pray the godliest of prayers when He said these words. No one has ever been more devoted than Jesus on this day, and yet on this day He will appear to be utterly fruitless, debased, and cursed. This is the beginning of “Good Friday.” According to the definitions of this world, no man was ever, or could be, more cursed and unfruitful than this naked man nailed to this tree in a garden on the Holy Mountain. And yet, according to God, no man was ever, or could be, more fruitful or a greater blessing. Maybe we’re confused about what fruit is and where and how it grows... 1) I think we often assume that Jesus suffered and died so that we don’t have to — which makes it rather hard to abide in the vine during certain seasons of the year. 2) And we assume that some branches go to heaven, and some are endlessly burned in Hell — which makes it kind of hard to be at home in the Vine and with the Vinedresser. 3) And we assume that the Vinedresser chooses to prune particular branches based upon the choices of those branches, our choices — which makes us all judgmental, competitive, and angry... which is the opposite of the Fruit of the Spirit. That’s called “the work of the flesh.” In John 14:30-31, just before John 15, Jesus says, “I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim in me, but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here.” It reminds me of Job. Satan asked God, “Does Job respect you for no reason?” That is, “He only says ‘Yes’ to you for what you give him, not because of who you are.” Job is stripped of all and left sitting on a pile of dust and ashes. Job gets no explanation, and “NO” seems to be the only answer to his prayers. God appears in the end and asks, “Can you conquer Leviathan (Satan in the form of a dragon)?” God says, “Who has first given to me that I should repay him? ...Leviathan is king over all the sons of pride.” Job sees God, worships God, and confesses, “I uttered what I do not understand... but now my eyes see you.” Job had asked for knowledge of God, and God gave no answer but himself, and Job became even more fruitful; he had faith while sitting on a pile of dust and ashes — that’s fruit. Job was God’s champion, conquered the dragon, and became even more fruitful. And, of course, he is a picture of the one speaking in John 15. He just said, “Rise, let us go from here.” They’re on their way to a garden. In the Garden of Gethsemani (“olive press”), in great distress, Jesus prays, “Abba, Father... remove this cup from me.” And apparently the answer is “No.” Jesus is the Word and Will of God the Father! So... is Jesus asking, “in Jesus’ name”? Apparently not. I think He’s asking in my name and your name and hearing “NO” on our behalf. He did say, “Abide in me, and I in you.” He then prays, “Yet not what I will but what you will.” I find that to be incredibly hard to pray (to will what I don’t will), but perhaps I can pray it in Jesus’ name. My grandson, James, is beginning to learn the word, “No.” It kills me to say “No” to James. I love saying “YES!” but I know that unless a child learns “No,” they will always be alone and incapable of saying “Yes” to Love and Life and Joy. I think there’s a part of me in James, so I don’t want him to hear “No,” for I know how much that hurts. Yet, I long for the day that James comes home and I can say, “James, all that’s mine is yours. Lick the light sockets if you want to! Drink from the toilet if you want to! Eat the dirt in the garden if you want to! No more rules; everything is ‘YES!’” Paul wrote, “In the Son of God it is always ‘yes.’ All the promises of God find their ‘Yes’ in Him.” The role of a good dad or granddad is to not only impose your will from the outside, like a law or prison, but to grow your will from the inside until your will becomes your child’s will — a good free will. From the garden of Gethsemani, Jesus is taken to the Garden on the Holy Mountain, where he is hung on a tree and from which He prays, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do,” and “Why have you forsaken me?” He says, “I thirst,” quoting David in Psalm 39, and as with David, they give Him sour wine to drink. Like Job, David heard “NO.” And in the place he heard “NO,” God answered with Himself. Jesus is literally born of David’s sin and grief. One Son of David dies. David knows Bathsheba in a new way, and another Son of David is born. Jesus is the Son of David that dies and is born (actually is resurrected) and builds the temple of living stones. In the garden on the tree, Jesus hears “NO” on behalf of all humanity (Adam). He drinks the sour wine and delivers up His Spirit. That’s the Holy Spirit that descends into us and rises within us, crying “Abba” from the garden sanctuary of the soul. “Rise let us go from here (to the Garden: John 18:1, 26, 19:24). I am the true vine.” This is the seventh and last “I Am statement” in the Gospel of John and the seventh sign that is the substance. In the Hebrew mind, a vine was a type of tree (ets). “In the middle of the garden there was the ‘ets’ of Life and the ‘ets’ of the knowledge of Good and evil.” The Dragon tempts each of us to justify ourselves with the knowledge of Good and evil and so trap ourselves in an illusion that is our own arrogant, lonely, and competitive ego. And at that, God says “NO” and drives humanity from the garden, in order to save us from ourselves in the hope that we would come back to the garden, eat from the tree in a new way, and God our Father could finally say nothing but “YES! YES! YES!” “I am the true vine,” said Jesus. It does imply the existence of a not-so-true vine. The 12 disciples knew that Israel was God’s Vine and Vineyard. Isaiah 5:1-4, “My beloved had a vineyard... and he looked for grapes and it yielded, ‘baushiym,’ sour grapes.... ‘What more was there to do for my Vineyard,’ asks Yahweh?” I watched several videos on “Vine dressing.” The goal of the “vinedresser” is to dress the Vine in delicious fruit from the inside out. Scripture claims that we will each be dressed in the Righteousness (the right decisions) of Christ from the inside out. I learned that absent pruning, a vine will send most of its energy into growth and produce sour grapes that make sour wine, but when pruned — the same vine will produce abundant and delicious fruit. Perhaps we all eat from the tree of knowledge and become a tree of death, and we will all be pruned, right down to the root and become a tree of life. I learned that the best wine comes from old vines pruned numerous times (kind of like people). “What more was I to do?” asks Yahweh. In the next chapter, Isaiah is told to preach Israel down to a stump that is a root and the Holy Seed. Isaiah continues in Chapter 27: “Israel will blossom... and fill the whole world with fruit... therefore the guilt of Jacob will be atoned for, and this will be the full fruit (harvest) of the removal of his sins.” John 15:1, “I am the true vine, and my father is the vinedresser (“georgos,” from which we derive the name “George.”) It makes sense of the legend of St. George and the dragon. Our Father cuts away everything dead and diseased in which the dragon abides. In the words of CS Lewis, Jesus was “un-dragoned” on the cross. In the words of Paul, He was circumcised on the cross. I’m saying that Jesus was pruned on the tree in the garden on the Holy Mountain. Pruned of what? Our sin... in His flesh. The Devil has nothing in Him, but on the cross, He was wearing our sin; He’s the Scapegoat that becomes the Sin Offering. He’s also the Burnt Offering (Olah). Jesus is the goat and the sheep; Jesus is the sin offering and the burnt offering. Jesus is repentance in you, and He is righteousness in you and dressing you from the inside out. We die with Him and rise with him. To abide in Him is to be at home in Him and look at the Father through His eyes. The Self that’s hearing God and looking Him in the eye is eternal. The self that we judge in the past and try to create in the future is an illusion — the product of the dragon’s lie, the body of sin. We must all be pruned; we must all hear “NO” to our arrogance, in order that we would say “YES” to our Father in Freedom. Our Father knows that this process — growing up — hurts. So, He comes to us in Jesus and says, “Get into me; we’ll do this together. Abide in me and my love for our Father.” It’s called Faith. When my daughter, James’ mom, was a little girl, she cracked her head on the fireplace, and I took her to the emergency room for stitches. To keep her still, they tied her down. It was Hell. Every scream seemed to say “Daddy, why have you forsaken me?” A few months later, she did the same thing, and I drove her to the same hospital once again. But this time I asked permission, and the doctor agreed to give it a try. I said, “Honey, I know it’s scary, but if you look into my eyes and bel...
Transcribe →Greater Works
Apr 26Tap to summarizeIn John 14:12, Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.” Greater works — what does that mean? Jesus walked on water, and Peter did too... at least for a few steps. “Greater works than these will you do.” It’s the bane of every pastor. People say, “Pray for my healing, pastor; Jesus said, ‘Greater works will you do.’” The disciples healed everyone... sometimes, and also no one, sometimes. They healed... sometimes. And they cast out demons. I’ve done that, in Jesus’ name; it really freaked me out the first time! Jesus said to the 70, “Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” After his chapter on “Gifts of the Spirit,” Paul wrote about “the still more excellent way.” So... Maybe the Greater Works are not “signs and wonders,” but greater churches built by greater pastors. At one time, I was esteemed by many as a great pastor because my church grew greatly from a few people to a few thousand people. At times, I felt like I was walking on water . . . but not very far, AND only because I was running as fast as I possibly could. We watched a video of young men trying to walk on water by running really, really, fast... It seemed to be working (15 million views), but the video — even a few steps — was a hoax. John 14:13, Jesus says, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.” Jesus said this to The Eleven at the last supper. All 11 died martyr’s deaths, except John who was exiled to a prison colony. Don’t you think they would’ve prayed, “God, please — put out the flames; please give my executioner the flu; please don’t let Jesus die on a cross... in Jesus’ name”? In two chapters and in this same monologue, John 16:24, Jesus says, “Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask that your joy may be full.” Isn’t that incredible? They had cast out demons and healed the sick BUT had never asked anything in Jesus’ name. WOW! In Jesus’ name, would you pray to get rich when He said, “Blessed are the poor”? Would you pray to crush your enemies when He commanded you to “Love your enemies”? Would you pray for the best seat at the banquet when Jesus commanded you to always take the worst (Luke 14:10)? I bet I know one prayer that none of the disciples had ever prayed at any dinner party, and so, of course, could not have prayed in Jesus’ name. I bet that none of them had ever prayed, “Father let me be the one to wash the feet, everyone’s feet, including Judas.” It’s important to be aware of context and the danger of refrigerator magnets that can only contain a few words. When Jesus said these things — “Greater works than these, etc.” — He had just taken the form of a slave, washed everyone’s feet, and said, “Now is the Son of man glorified... A new commandment I give you, ‘love one another as I have loved you.’” It’s new but old, because it’s eternal. And it’s old but new, because Jesus just showed them what it meant.” John has written extensively about “The Bread of Life,” and the entire Revelation is about the Blood which is Wine. But in his Gospel, instead of retelling the words of institution, John recounts how Jesus washed everyone’s feet — as if to say, “This is what communion with Him looks like in your everyday life.” If you went to a party and started washing everyone’s feet, people would be very annoyed and rightly assume that you were a sanctimonious religious nut, trying to justify yourself by shaming everyone else. But what if you went to that party, and silently prayed, “Our Father, let me see Judas with your eyes; let me see those who are disappointed in me with your compassion. Let me forget myself and get lost in them. Let me sit in the worst seat, that they would sit in a better seat. Father, let me see my world and the people you have made with your eyes, the eyes of Christ, and so tell them what they long to hear: ‘I love you!’ In the name of Jesus, Amen.” The name Jesus (Yahweh + yasha), Yeshua, literally means, “God is Salvation.” What could “praying in the name of ‘God is Salvation’” mean except praying for the Salvation of all of the Father’s children — the people that He has made? And what prayer would the Savior be happier to answer than that one? And how could He better answer it than by giving you His own Spirit that would look through your eyes out upon a Judas with infinite compassion, wash His feet, and even call him “friend,” while being betrayed in a garden? What if the greatest work so far was washing feet, and “the work, greater than these” was not only washing feet, but clipping toenails or some such thing? What if greatness went in that direction? You know, as I thought about that this week, I was surprised by this amazing sense of relief and peace. It’s incredibly stressful, trying to exalt yourself at every dinner party, always trying to be the best and the first. It’s incredibly hard to always defend yourself, justify yourself — that is, always make yourself right. It all feels so wrong; it feels like hell. But maybe I could actually wash someone’s feet... if only for a moment. And for that moment, everything would be perfect, and my soul would rest. AND YET, that moment would be an absolute miracle. I couldn’t get there by trying, for the harder I try to love, the more I try to justify myself with works of love, and the less I do love. On that day, many will say to Jesus, “‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And He will declare to them, ‘I never knew you.’” (If He does not know them, He didn’t make them, and they must be an illusion of their own making.) He will say to others, “’I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me...’” or maybe, “I was in the least of these, like Judas, and you washed my feet.” They’ll say, “I don’t remember that.” And He’ll say, “That’s because you weren’t trying to be that; you just were that; LOVE has become your nature. I Am Love.” Love holds the Universe in His hand. He holds you in His hand. And Jesus is His hand. And so, what separates us from Him? How about the illusion that Love is an idea in our head and a great work that we can do, when Love is the One that does everything — including us? Perhaps the greater work is not only washing feet, but clipping the toenails of people who despise you, while looking up into their face with the eyes of Christ — not because you have to, but because you want to? John 14:9-11 (Just before 12-13), Jesus said to Philip, “Have I been with you so long, and you still don’t know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (It was Yahweh that just washed your feet, Philip)... “The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own, but the Father abiding in me does his works.” HIS WORKS! If I go to a party, thinking that I have to save everyone, I won’t be able to love anyone, and I sure as hell won’t wash anyone’s feet. But Jesus knew something that I’m just barely beginning to know, and that is: “Yahweh, (Our Father) is Salvation.” On His own, “The Son can do nothing (John 5:19!),” but at home in the Father, with the Father at home in Him, He was literally Yahweh incarnate, saving “the world.” But it wasn’t “His work” to do; it was Love at work in Him, through Him, and as Him. It’s such a relief to know that I’m not asked to save everyone at the party. And yet, I can wash their feet, and The Love in that moment will save them. And one day, The Love will say to me, “Look at the fish that you caught, Peter.” John 14:12, “Greater [megas] works than these...” “Megas” in Greek often refers to quantity rather than quality. So, the same Coke that’s in a Mega Cup is the same Coke that’s in a Mini Cup, like the Faith in a Mustard Seed is the Same Faith that becomes a kingdom, and the same Love in giving a drink to a child is the same Love that will fill all things with Himself. John 14:15-23, “If you love me” [“If” you do, it is a miracle, for Love is the Uncaused Cause] — “If you love me, you will keep my commandments, and I will ask the Father and He will give you another Helper [parakletos — It means “One Called Alongside.” It’s a Helper made fit for us. We, each and all are made from the wounded side of the Last Adam] ...even the Spirit of The Truth... You know Him, for he abides with you and will be [or “is”] in you... In that [the] day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Whoever has my commandments [like, “wash each other’s feet”] and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father and I will love him and manifest myself to [“in” or “by”] him... and we will come to him and make our abode with him.” John Powell taught the course Theology of Faith at Loyola University. One year, Tommy was the resident atheist in his class. “Do you think I’ll ever find God?” asked Tommy with a sneer as he handed in his final exam. “No,” replied Professor Powell... “but I’m certain that He’ll find you.” John Powell was relieved when Tommy graduated but grieved when he got the news: Tommy was diagnosed with terminal cancer. One day, he showed up in Professor Powell’s office. His body had been wasted away, but his eyes were bright. He said, “I got serious about looking for God and nothing happened. So, I decided that I didn’t care about God or some sort of afterlife... But I remembered something you said in your class: ‘The essential sadness is to go through life without loving.’ I figured that it would be equally sad to leave this world without telling those you love that you have loved them. So, I began with the hardest — my dad... Here I was in the shadow of death, and I was just beginning to open up... Then one day I turned around and G...
Transcribe →Good Grief
Apr 19Tap to summarizeNo description available
Transcribe →The Way Home (to I AM)
Apr 12Tap to summarizeI’m troubled about my nation. I’m troubled about broken personal relationships. Mostly I’m troubled about being troubled; I don’t feel at home in myself or in the world around me. It wasn’t that way in 1969. I lived with people who knew me before I even knew how to impress them or disappoint them. I was getting picked on by kids at school — but if I could just get home and sit on my father’s lap, I could rest and be who it is that . . . I am. I hope my nine-month-old grandson, James — who lives with his mom and dad at my house — is starting to feel at home. I think he does; he doesn’t even know how to put on an act. He has no pretense and no private life but seems to be very much at home. The cover picture for this message is James on Easter Sunday in our cry room at church, reaching for me on the TV as if I belong to him. Recently, praying with my wife in our kitchen, I told the Lord, “Everything here just feels so strange...” After a time, Susan said, “Peter, I just heard Him very clearly. He said, ‘Of course it feels strange. This isn’t your home.’” And strangely, I didn’t find that troubling. By the end of John 13, Peter must have been quite troubled. John 13:36-38, “Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, where are you going?’ Jesus answered him, ‘Where I am going you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterward.’ Peter said to him, ‘Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.’ Jesus answered, ‘Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times.’” Peter was troubled by his nation; they wanted a king (messiah), but not Jesus. Peter was troubled by his personal relationships; Judas had just been possessed by Satan and then left to betray Jesus. But mostly, Peter was troubled about himself: Not long ago, just after Jesus said that he would build His Church on Peter, Jesus looked at Peter and said, “Get behind me Satan”; Jesus had just washed Peter’s feet, when it should’ve been the other way around; and worst of all — when Peter publicly vowed his undying allegiance to Jesus, Jesus informed Peter that he would deny Him three times. If I’m Peter (and I suppose I am), I’m bracing for a massive rebuke at this point, like, “You should be troubled as hell! How am I to build my church on you?” John 13:38b-14:1a, “... The rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times. [NEXT VERSE (The chapter divisions were added 1500 years later)] Let not your heart be troubled.” “Let not... be troubled” is in the imperative tense; it’s the Commandment. …And I find that to be quite troubling. I’m a pastor; I’m supposed to be Mr. Peace and Patience. However, when I’m encountered with troubling situations, I not only “don’t let my heart be troubled,” I trouble it until I attain more knowledge, have applied that knowledge to the situation at hand, and have no more troubling situations. Troubling my heart is how I get things done! And weirdly, John has just informed us (John 11:33, 12:27, 13:21) that Jesus was troubled, after three years of seeming to be so untroubled. When I’m troubled, I feel forsaken by Logic (I don’t know how to make things work), Goodness (I don’t know what’s good), Life (I think someone might die), Truth (I don’t know where it is), or the Way (I don’t know which way to go). I feel forsaken by “I Am”; I feel that I am not enough. On the tree in the garden, Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” That’s troubling. Yet, Jesus is “I Am that I Am” in human flesh. And Jesus is quoting David in Psalm 22. So, if you feel forsaken, and you tell God that you feel forsaken, maybe it’s Jesus in you, feeling forsaken with you, and helping you talk to His Father — the way He talked to His Father through David, 1000 years before He died on the cross. He’s made all of our troubles His own. St Augustine wrote: “If there is faith in us, Christ is in us. For what else says the Apostle: ‘That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.” John 14:1, “Believe (‘pisteuete,’ the verbal form of ‘pistis,’ that is ‘faith’) in God. Believe also in me.” [Or, “You believe in God. You believe also in me.” It can be translated in both ways — as a command or statement of fact. Maybe it’s both: A command, like “Let there be faith in Peter” and a statement of fact; we know that Peter had at least a little faith. “If we have faith as a grain of mustard seed,” wrote Karl Barth, “it suffices for the devil to have lost his game.”] John 14:1-2, “Y’all, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God. And you believe in me. In my Father’s house are many abodes [mone].” [“Mone” is the noun. “Meno” is the verb, translated “abide.”] An abode is where you abide. And if you want to know what it means to abide, Jeff Lebowski is a fairly good definition. This was his catch phrase: “The Dude abides.” In the opening sequence of the movie, The Big Lebowski, The Dude goes to the grocery store in his bathrobe and just starts drinking the half in half in the aisle. He has no pretense; he just makes himself at home wherever he goes. So, if Jesus were to ever say, “Abide in me as I abide in you,” He’d be saying, “Make yourself at home in me, as I have made myself at home in you... my abode.” Are you at home in Jesus, OR are you always on your best behavior, always trying to impress and so acting your very best? John 14:2-3, “In my Father’s house there are many abodes. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go and prepare a place for [or ‘in’] you? And if I go and prepare a place for [or ‘in’] you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also.” This is so strange. Jesus is leaving them to come back to them to take them to Himself, as if they’re not with Himself or themselves already. Some remind us that this is what a bridegroom would say in that day, after a bride had accepted his proposal by drinking the cup. And this is what he would do: He would go and prepare a room on the side of his father’s house and then return to take his bride to himself and a marriage feast. And, of course, according to The Revelation, this is also what’s happening to all of us. We are the Bride AND the Father’s House. “In that day,” says Jesus in just a few more verses, “you will know that I am in my father and you in me and I in you (He’s leaving, and yet not leaving, and will not forsake them.)” “In that day, you will know.” —And yet, this is Friday... In just a few hours, they will think He’s gone. Why would He even let them think that? Why would He let any of us wonder, “Is everything lost? Is everything a lie? Is death all that there is?” Why would He let us yearn for the Light in the dark, or Logos in chaos, Life in a graveyard, Truth in lies, the Way in confusion, or Love in the depths of our own isolation and hell? Susan and I started dating in high school but were separated for the first year of college. One night, she prayed a desperate prayer and stuck her finger down on this verse: Philemon 1:15. “Perhaps he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever.” That year, I yearned for Susan like I never had before. I think I was parted from her, that I would want to be with her forever; I wanted her to be my home, and I wanted to be hers. Now, think of all the broken relationships in your life: friends, relatives, your ex-wife or ex-husband. Perhaps you were parted from them for a while, that you might have them back forever . . . Or would you rather not go home? You have to want to go home to actually go home, because home is your abode where you abide. In other words, the Father’s house must become your home in order to go home. One day, James will take knowledge of good and evil, try to please me — which will make him hide from me — but that will create a yearning for me. And one day he’ll come home to me — in this age or the next — and he’ll know me for the first time... thinking, “There’s no place like home. No place like home.” And I will be thinking exactly the same thing. Perhaps God was parted from you to make a space in you for Him, and a space in Him that is actually you — happy to be home in Him forever. John 14:4-6, “’And you know the way to where I am going.’ Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am [ego eimi] the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” The Way, the Truth, and the Life, who is “I Am,” is hanging on the tree in the garden like fruit. What do we do with it? What do the principalities and powers of this world do with it? Don’t we try to own it, use it, maybe sell it? Don’t we say that it belongs to us so that the only way to the Father is through us? Don’t we take the Way and turn Him into a map, take the Truth and turn Him into laws, take the Life and place Him in a tomb that is ourselves? We consume the fruit to make ourselves live… and everything dies. The Book of Philemon is a letter, written by Paul to a slave owner named Onesimus. “Perhaps this is why he was parted from you for a while,” writes Paul, “that you might have him back forever; no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a dearly beloved brother.” Human religions reduce Jesus to laws, programs, principles, body broken and bloodshed... our slave. But what does Faith do with Him? We surrender to Him and worship Him, and He makes us His Bride, Body, and Temple; He makes us His home, that we would forever make our home in Him. The false self gives birth to the true self, and I become who it is that I forever Am; I go home. The distance between who I am alone in darkness and who I am alive in Jesus is the width of Me-sus, my arrogant and self-righteous ego. The Journey from one to the other is the journey from earth to Heaven. And the Way from one to the other is the Truth. Truth in me is a Life in me, and I think we call him HONESTY. I ...
Transcribe →The Giving Tree
Apr 5Tap to summarize“Good news: Christ is risen!” — That’s what we say on Easter. “Christ is risen!” But that’s one guy out of one hundred billion or so... since Adam. The preacher says: “No! Christ is risen, and you will rise too... If you believe. But is that “news”? Is it “news” to me if the news depends on me? “Good news: Christ is Risen!” So, is it small? Is it news? And is it good? Dan Barker was an evangelical pastor who now professes to be and atheist. At “Skepticon 4” in 2011, he proposed an interesting scenario: “Suppose you were walking by my house…and I were to go up on the porch and say, ‘Hey... I’ve got some good news! You don’t have to go down in my basement... You’ve been ignoring me and it’s made me so... horribly mad. So, I built a torture chamber down in my basement... But you don’t have to go down there! I sent my son down there. And it was gruesome... But that satisfied my anger... All you have to do [is] come up here... and tell my son that you love him and hug him, and then you can move in with us... And you can tell me how great I am... won’t that be great?’ So, would you keep walking?” Ouch . . . And good question. 1 Corinthians 15:1-2, Paul writes, “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel [euangelion: “Good News!”] I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you...” What does Paul mean by “if”? Does he mean that Jesus didn’t die for you 2000 years ago if you don’t believe today by the end of the sermon? I once took my children on a giant inflated banana ride behind a motorboat in the Sea of Cortez. When we all fell off (as planned), my daughter Becky (terrified of sharks) began to freak out. I swam to her and said, “Good News! I was a lifeguard in high school. Do you confess that you need to be saved? And do you trust that I can save you?” She just yelled at me and didn’t answer the questions. So, I let her drown in the sea. That was her choice. We’ll miss her, but all the other kids said, “Dad, you really validated my free choice and my own sense of personal agency by letting Becky drown in the sea. You’re a good Dad.” Actually, that last part didn’t happen. This did happen: Becky tried to climb me, stand on top of me, and I began to drown. So, I consciously chose to express anger; I pushed her away and began yelling, “Stop. Stop it. Just stop it, Becky!” When I was a lifeguard, I learned that frightened drowning people will often seize control and endanger you both. So, to save them, you have to “NOT save them” but just watch them drown until they’ve exhausted themselves. And then, you can save them and swim for them. While they’re drowning, they’re not actually being saved, they’re being prepared to be saved. But then, once saved, they tend to trust their savior, and everyone can enjoy the giant banana ride on the sea of Cortez. Even if you were a Lifeguard with Superpowers, like God, nobody that you saved could “receive” salvation, know salvation, or know you, the Savior, if they thought that they had saved themselves. Maybe your faith doesn’t create the Good News, but your faith enables you to enjoy the Good News — kind of like enjoying a ride on a giant banana on the Sea of Cortez. Maybe salvation isn’t a reward for believing, but believing is literally salvation. Paul taught that all sin was “not believing,” that “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” We are “being saved” from “not believing.” 1 Corinthians 15:3-6,17, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time. [He appeared to ‘the twelve’! Taken literally, this means that Jesus appeared to Judas in Gehenna. I doubt they stayed there.] And if Christ has not been raised your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” You are not forgiven because Jesus died (Paul just said so: verse 17). You are not forgiven because Jesus was a “penal substitute” or because God was working out his anger issues or satisfying some distorted notion of “justice.” You are forgiven because Jesus ROSE from a tomb, and that tomb is you — He is the righteousness of God in you: Faith, Hope, and Love rising in you. 1 Corinthians 15:22-28, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. [That’s Big News!] ...For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. [The wrath of God is not “death,” but the destruction of death, which is Life. And Jesus is the Life. He is God’s wrath upon the basement in which we have all trapped ourselves.] ... When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.” Big News! God is Beauty, Reason, the Way, Truth, Life, and Love. So, what’s missing in the picture of God that Dan Barker is painting? God. God is missing. So, this is Good News: The God that Dan Barker doesn’t believe in, doesn’t exist. And Dan Barker doesn’t believe in that God because something in Dan Barker does believe in: Beauty, Reason: “the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” Love, and the Good. “God alone is Good,” said Jesus. 1 Corinthians 15:45 “Thus it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being’ [psyche: soul]; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” Do you remember how it happened? He hung on a tree in a garden, cried “It is finished,” and delivered up His Spirit. We take Christ’s life on the tree, and everything dies; Christ gives His life on the tree, so we receive His life from the tree, and everything lives. If love is taken, we call it “rape,” and we don’t know love. If love is given and received, we call it “life” and sometimes “a baby.” If life is taken, we call it “murder.” But if life is given, we call it “Grace.” And it fills our sin with Faith. God didn’t take Christ’s life on the tree. He gave Christ’s life (His own life) on the tree. We took Christ’s life on the tree. People ask, “Why did Jesus have to die on the cross?” Answer: He didn’t have to; he wanted to. God doesn’t have to do anything; He wants to do everything. He doesn’t have to create anything; He wants to create everything. God is the Giver of all that is. And Jesus is how He does it; He is the Word through whom all things are created. The Cross is a giving tree that we thought was a taking tree. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein was one of my children’s favorite books. A tree loves a boy, and a boy “loves” a tree, but he uses the tree to make himself happy, until all that’s left of the tree is a stump. As an old, tired man, the boy returns and sits on the stump. And the tree is happy and the boy is Happy. The End. 1 Corinthians 15:53-57, “For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ ‘O death, where is your victory? O death where is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” “This is the victory that overcomes our world,” writes John. “Our faith.” God gives it. For Christmas one year, my daughter Becky, gave me one of her favorite books, The Giver by Lois Lowry. I also saw the movie. In the story, Jonas is a boy who lives in a futuristic dystopian society. At first, it seems pleasant, but gradually we realize something is missing: No one dances. There is no music. They reproduce, but no one makes love. And perhaps, Love is making no one... And one other curious thing: Everything is in black and white. It turns out that the elders had outlawed the memory of love, for love is hard to control, and with love comes pain. The Elders believed that when people have a choice, they always choose wrong... And that’s true: People do. But Faith, Hope, and Love are not our choice; Love is God’s choice, born in us and then rising from within us. In fear, the Elders had built a high-tech wall around the city to protect the city from the memory of Love. It gave them the ability to eliminate the sick, the old, and unwanted without feeling any pain. However, the Elders had appointed a “receiver of memories,” whose task was to remember Love in order to gain Wisdom, and so advise the council who would then take Wisdom — the Spirit of Love — and turn Her into laws. The Elders knew about Love, but in fear, they turned Love into Law —that’s The knowledge of Good and evil written in stone or a book . . . it’s dead. We all lust for law, for it feels safe. With enough laws, we think that we can judge everything, build walls, and so protect ourselves from pain. That is, protect ourselves from The Story of Love: also called “The Gospel.” In fear, we protect ourselves by judging everything as simply in or out, good or evil. We see everything in black and white, and so create hell on earth. But when we fear only God, who is love, He casts out fear, and we can begin to see in color; we can see the Revelation of Love in creation all around us. “For you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in his wings” (Malachi 4:2). A sunrise, with all its shadow and color, is the story of the revelation of Light. And your life, with all of its challenges and struggles, is the story of the revelation of Love... told in order that you would fall in love with Love, freely surrender to Love, and even give birth to Love — You are the Revelation of Love in human flesh. In The Giver, the old receiver and Jonas decide to give what they’ve received to ever...
Transcribe →Who’s Trial is this Anyway?
Mar 29Tap to summarizeNo description available
Transcribe →Don’t Change Your Life; Give Birth to It (Him)
Mar 22Tap to summarizeAfter washing all of the disciple’s feet and offering Himself as body broken and blood shed, after Judas leaves to sell Him for thirty piece of silver, and after saying ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified,’ Jesus says: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34). How did He just love them? If you are like most of us, you should be screaming, “How am I going to do that? How am I going to genuinely love my enemies because I want to love my enemies, be broken for them and bleed for them? How am I going to love in freedom? The harder I try to do that, the more I won’t do that, and the more I’ll resent Jesus for telling me to do that. How can I make myself Jesus?” Perhaps the answer is rather simple and yet as complex as every relationship that you’ve ever had. For you can’t truly know another until you allow yourself to be known, and no one is born knowing this; it requires an intervention, a miracle. And on top of everything else, Satan works day and night to create diversions and triggers in you, so that you’re unwilling to even consider the answer. I need to remind you of our last three messages. In the first message, from John 12, we learned that “The commandment is Eternal Life (12:50),” that is “laying down your life (psyche) and taking it up again (10:18),” which is “to love as Jesus has loved us (15:12),” which Jesus just said is “a new commandment.” According to 1 John 2:7-8, it is “the Word that you heard, old and new (eternal)... which is true in Him and in You.” In the first message, we asked, “What is the Commandment of the Father?” And the Answer is Jesus. In the second message, we asked the question of the Son: “What are you so ashamed of?” The Commandment is Love, and sometimes I think I actually do love — and this must be who it is that I truly am. But the Commandment is also to Love like Jesus — but I don’t love like Jesus, and so I pretend to love like Jesus. That distance between who I actually am and who it is that I think I should be (and so pretend to be) is my false self — the shadow man, the imposter. And so, I protect who it is that I am, truly, with who it is that I am not. I trap myself in a prison of falsehood that I feel as shame and try to mitigate with accomplishments, good deeds — and of course, fashionable clothes. The theology, psychology, and sociology of shame is profoundly complex and hard to understand, except that God has built it into our very bodies. We know how it feels. In 1977, Ms. Rydberg sat me next to Susan Coleman in Masterpieces of American Literature at Heritage High. I immediately thanked God. I wanted to know Susan, but I didn’t really know if I wanted to know her, because I didn’t know her — I just knew that she appeared to be “good for food, a delight to the eyes, and to be desired to make me look cool.” And I wanted to be known by her, but I didn’t want to be rejected by her, so I worked really hard at impressing her with things that weren’t really me. I wore my jacket with all the ski tags, pretended to be cool, and tried to act like I didn’t care what she thought of me. I hid myself in a false self, terrified to be touched and yet longing to be touched by her. And she did the same. To be honest, she caught my attention with her body, but she captured my heart with something far greater: the Spirit that God had placed within her. One day, after dating for about a year, I broke up with her. The following day, I went looking for her, for once I had lost her, I wanted her again —which only reveals the problem with me: I thought she was a commodity (The Bible calls this “playing the whore.”) I found her in a park by a tree and weeping over me. I just “beheld” her. She had allowed herself to be broken by me, and then I just broke for her. She captured me with the fluid that spilled from her broken heart. It was Life — her life, our life, my life. After five more years, we became one flesh. And now, 42 years later, I think we are one spirit in one body. “God jealously yearns over the Spirit that He has made to dwell in you” (James 4:5). Bodies come and go; the Spirit is eternal. In the third message (last week’s message), titled, “What has God been hiding?” We asked, “What has God been hiding?” I noticed that Jesus “laid aside his garments” when He washed the disciple’s feet. We know that, according to Scripture, we wear clothes because of our shame. But why did Jesus wear clothes? Did He have shame (unless of course, He wears me or mine)? Why did the Word of God hide himself in the body of a carpenter? Why did God hide Himself (eternity) behind the veil in the Temple (in space and time)? In eternity, He sees all of you, every moment in time. What would happen if I (64-year-old Peter Hiett) were to travel back in time to Ms. Rydberg’s American Literature class in the fall of 1977 in my 16-year-old body and sit next to 16-year-old Susan Coleman and tell her how I really feel about her now? What would’ve happened if I were to say, “Susan Coleman... Hiett. You are my temple; you are my home. Your body is my body, and my body is your body. I am you, and you are me; me is we, and I honestly would have no idea who I am without you. God creates me through you. You are literally my life; you are Jonathan, Elizabeth, Rebekah, Coleman, Sweet Baby James, and everyone in their world that is now our world. You have no idea how beautiful you are and how easy you are to love.” If I had said that to her, in September of 1977, that would’ve been the last conversation that we ever had. She would’ve been “triggered.” And now you may be “triggered,” for you may be thinking, “I’m gay, or transgender, or married and divorced,” or “I’ve been abused and violated; I want that to be my story, but that is not my story!” Respectfully, I would insist that you are wrong. For every day, in every way, in every place, in every moment in time, Jesus is sitting next to you, burning with Love for you. And so, you may say, “Why doesn’t He just tell me?” Well, maybe it’s because that is the way He feels about you, but that is not the way you feel about Him... yet. And so, He is romancing you. He’s taking you on a journey and inviting you to talk with Him, commune with Him, every day in the sanctuary of your soul. Why doesn’t He just tell you? Maybe He is, all the time (that’s why He made time). You’ve already seen that He is “good for food and a delight to the eyes,” and so you have consumed Him like fruit taken from a tree. You’ve already seen that He is “to be desired to make one wise,” and so you’ve already used Him, trying to impress Him, which just kills Him and makes everything die. And You’ve already seen that He is “the Life” that you took, and so you’ve already run from Him and hidden yourself in fig leaves, shame, and fear. What you may not have yet seen is that He’s with you all the time; He’s the Seed in the fruit. And so, in your place of shame, He will show you that He is always Grace — Grace, which creates Faith, that is Life in you. #1. What is the Commandment of the Father? Jesus. #2. What are we hiding? That we cannot fulfill the Commandment. #3. What has God been hiding? That He is the Commandment. #4. Our question for our message today: How do we fulfill the Commandment? It would be helpful to reread John 12:31-13:30. In John 13:31, John writes: “When [Judas] had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now is the son of man glorified.’” We want to say, “No, now is the Son of man shamed... And why do you keep calling yourself ‘Son of Man?’” If God is Jesus’ Father, what does that make Man? His Mom! He said as much, “Whoever does the will of my Father... is my mother.” He’s also “The Son of David,” the prototypical man. “Against you, you only, have I sinned, Oh God,” wrote David in Psalm 51, after being confronted by Nathan the prophet in 2 Samuel 12. David knew that it was the Lord he had violated in Bathsheba and murdered in Uriah. Having heard the Word, David repents. The Son of David dies. David “comforts” Bathsheba, and the Son of David is literally conceived in the place of David’s shame. Jesus is the Son of David that dies. Jesus is the Son of David that is born, builds the temple, and makes all things new. In each and all of us, Christ is conceived in our place of shame. I think of it this way: The Word that is heard (Seed: Zora in Hebrew, Sperma in Greek) meets the Breath breathed into your soul in the beginning (Seed: Zora in Hebrew, Spora in Greek, the feminine noun), and the veil in the temple of your soul rips, and the Life in the Holy of Holies begins to fill the whole temple until the day that you are born out of this age and into our Home. In this way, the false self gives birth to the true; the old adam gives birth to the New; “I am not” gives birth to who it is that “I am” and you are. Nothing is wasted, and then I am free of me, and you of you, for all the glory goes to Him — Him in us. “All times are present to God,” writes C.S. Lewis. “It may be that salvation consists not in the canceling of these eternal moments but in the perfected humility that bears the shame forever, rejoicing in the occasion which it furnished to God’s compassion and glad that it should be common knowledge to the universe. Perhaps in that eternal moment, St. Peter — he will forgive me if I am wrong — forever denies his Master. If so, it would indeed be true that the joys of Heaven are, for most of us in our present condition, ‘an acquired taste’ — and certain ways of life may render the taste impossible of acquisition. Perhaps the lost are those who dare not go to such a public place.” It’s all in Scripture, but I learned most of it praying for a friend who had been a harlot, but God revealed to be His Bride. He once told her, “You have no idea how beautiful you are and how easy you are to love.” I have realized that her story is my story and our story. #4. How do we fulfill the Commandment...
Transcribe →What Has God Been Hiding?
Mar 15Tap to summarizeWhy did Jesus die for you on the cross? Was it to shame you into being good? In the movie, Private Ryan, as Captain Miller (played by Tom Hanks) is dying — just having saved Private Ryan — he says to Private Ryan, “Earn this.” And then, he breathes his last. But we’re not sure if that’s a curse or a blessing. Did Jesus say, “Earn this,” then breathe his last? Why did the veil in the temple rip from the top to the bottom? What was behind the curtain in the Holy of Holies? What was “uncovered”? What has God been hiding? What are the intentions of His Heart? John 13:1-9, “Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them into the end. And becoming supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, [‘is raised from the’] supper. He laid aside his garments, and taking a towel, he girded himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel in which [‘he was having been girded’]. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, do you wash my feet?’ Jesus answered him, ‘What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.’ Peter said to him, ‘You shall never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered him, ‘If I do not wash you, you have no part with me.’ Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!’” I think I understand Peter. He’s saying: “Oh, I get it now! If it’s about humility, I’ll win the humility contest; I’ll earn your love.” He still doesn’t understand. He’s projecting his psyche on to Jesus, who is literally the Psyche of the Lord. Peter gets religious. John 13:10-12, “Jesus said to him, ‘The one who has bathed does not need to wash (except for his feet) but is completely clean. And y’all are clean, but not all of y’all.’ For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, ‘Not all of y’all are clean.’ “When he had washed their feet and put on his garments and reclined again, he said to them, ‘Do you understand what I have done to you? ...If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen.’ [He’s already told us that he has chosen all 12]. ‘Nevertheless, the Scripture will be fulfilled, “He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.”’” Jesus must be saying, “My close friend has lifted his heel against me as if I am the serpent.” This close friend is projecting his own psyche onto the Psyche of the Lord. It’s the psyche of the snake. John 13:21-26, …“’Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.’ The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke. [Jesus washed everyone’s feet, and Judas looked just like everyone else.] One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at table at Jesus’ bosom, so Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So that disciple, leaning back against Jesus, said to him, ‘Lord, who is it?’ Jesus answered, ‘It is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.’ So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot.” He gave this morsel to Judas, just as His great-grandfather, Boaz, had given the morsel to His great- grandmother, Ruth, who then dipped it in his cup, before she uncovered his feet, and Boaz became her kinsman redeemer. Christ was born of their communion. Now Christ offers this morsal to Judas. John 13:27, “Then, after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him.” Paul wrote that if we drink the cup in an unworthy manner, without discerning the body, we drink judgment on ourselves. Judgment can be very painful, but the Judgment of God is always good. In Corinth, Paul tells the church to deliver (betray) a man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh in order that his spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord. John 13:30-31, “And it was night. When Judas had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified.’” Quite a story! For me, two questions emerge: #1. Why did Jesus take off His garments... and why did He have them on? Last time, we remembered why we wear clothes. We wear clothes to cover our shame. And we need to wear clothes because we abuse the nakedness of others to gratify our own desires, which only leads to more shame. But Jesus does NOT abuse the nakedness of others to gratify His own desires. Jesus never sinned. If He has something to hide, it certainly isn’t sin. #2. Why is Judas not “blessed,” but “cursed”? It seems that Judas did not “know these things” (13:7), and so was cursed when “he tried to do these things.” Perhaps “these things” were the very things that God has been hiding — “The Mystery.” “This mystery” is a profound one, writes Paul, “And I am saying that it refers to Christ and his Church... ‘Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.’” In Colossians 1, Paul writes that we are “now reconciled in Christ’s body of flesh.” The Risen Christ has flesh, but it’s a different kind of flesh; it’s not isolated to one point in space. It travels through time, and in Him are all things. So, what’s the problem with our flesh? It’s not that it’s flesh, per se, but that it’s alone, like Adam was alone before the fall — your flesh only feels its own pleasure and its own pain. Just imagine, if all of humanity was one body, each serving all and all serving each, and you could taste everyone’s pizza. And imagine if anyone’s pain was everyone’s pain, then everyone would rejoice in the salvation of anyone and, most of all, everyone. But because my body only feels its own pleasure and pain, I compete with other bodies for the best piece of pizza. And I use other bodies as a means to get pizza. In other words, my relationships are transactional and people are commodities. And — because we live in a world of limitations — I will actually take pizza to gratify my own desire, at the expense of another’s desire — that is, their pain. As a newlywed, I discovered that there was this moment in which my wife’s pleasure was my own pleasure, as if we were one body but an even better body than my lonely old body. I mean that she could eat the pizza, and it would taste better to me than if I ate it myself — I don’t mean to be crude, I’m trying to point to a miracle. Two bodies actually became one flesh, and that flesh was blessed with a new psyche: this knowledge that I was no longer just me, but “me” was “we” and “we” is “me.” In this old body of flesh trapped in space and time, I can only give myself fully to one other person in this way. “In Heaven, they neither marry nor are they given in marriage,” says Jesus. Is that because no one’s married at the wedding supper of the lamb, or is that because everyone is married and the very body of the Lamb? Understandably, people panic and ask, “Are you suggesting that Heaven is an orgy?” And I want to scream, “Absolutely not!” An orgy is rampant unfaithfulness that leaves everyone dead and alone. Heaven is a communion of absolute faithfulness in which no one is ever alone, and the pleasure of one is the pleasure of all, and the pleasure of all is the pleasure of one. In Heaven, we have lost our psyche and found it in Jesus. The problem that the Bible has with sex is not in the uniting, but the dividing. So, in Old Testament Law, the penalty for pre-marital sex is marriage. And the penalty for adultery is death, for by uniting with another that is already married, you break another’s body and harden everyone’s heart. So, in Scripture, sexual communion in space and time is bound by an unconditional covenant that you don’t actually make, but that you enter into with the act of sex, and then publicly acknowledge with a wedding banquet. If you are truly bound to another person in an unconditional covenant, it means that your relationship is entirely non-transactional. You can no longer do anything to earn the other’s love, for you already have it. So, if you love, you can only love in freedom. Good things can run wild. There are two ways that we can relate to God: #1. Harlotry, and #2. as the Bride.Peter was a harlot becoming the Bride, for the Word had found a place in him. Judas was a harlot who did not know, for he would not allow himself to be known by the Word of Love, and so he hung himself on a tree in the valley of Gehenna. And Jesus didn’t blame him, for “being known” is a gift. We cannot “take it” like fruit from a tree; it must always be given. So, what did Judas not know, and what had God been hiding until just the right time? How about this? He (God) is not a harlot, nor does he play the harlot; He is our Helper. He does not gratify himself at our expense; He sacrifices himself, for our pleasure is literally His pleasure, and He suffers all of our pain. He touches us in our place of shame that we would know His Grace; He touches us in our faithlessness, for He wants to give us Faith; He touches us in our hopelessness, for He is our Hope, “the mystery hidden for ages and generations: Christ in you, the hope of Glory”; He touches us in our lovelessness for He is Love — one hunk of burning, absolutely free and unconditional Love. Watch the message if you disagree, but it seems clear to me: Jesus descended into hell to wash the feet of Judas. And Judas let him, for there he would finally see: He couldn’t pay for anything and so God could give him everything, including his own heart: Jesus from the bosom of the Father. To “drink the cup in an unfitting manner” is to think you could pay for Him, your Life. The Curtain rips. And behold, a lamb is standing on the throne, bleeding for one and for all; He is your husband. This is what God has been...
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